When Internet of Things Meets Metaverse: Convergence of Physical and Cyber Worlds

TLDR

In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has been studied in the context of the Metaverse to provide users with immersive cyber‑virtual experiences in mixed‑reality environments. The survey introduces six typical IoT applications in the Metaverse—collaborative healthcare, education, smart city, entertainment, real estate, and socialization—and outlines open issues that must be addressed to achieve convergence of physical and cyber worlds. The authors survey four pillar technologies—responsible AI, high‑speed data communications, cost‑effective mobile edge computing, and digital twins—that enable AR and VR, and outline current industrial efforts and seven key requirements—immersion, variety, economy, civility, interactivity, authenticity, and independence—for building an IoT‑inspired Metaverse.

Abstract

In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has been studied in the context of the Metaverse to provide users with immersive cyber-virtual experiences in mixed-reality environments. This survey introduces six typical IoT applications in the Metaverse, including collaborative healthcare, education, smart city, entertainment, real estate, and socialization. In the IoT-inspired Metaverse, we also comprehensively survey four pillar technologies that enable augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), namely, responsible artificial intelligence (AI), high-speed data communications, cost-effective mobile edge computing (MEC), and digital twins. According to the physical-world demands, we outline the current industrial efforts and seven key requirements for building the IoT-inspired Metaverse: immersion, variety, economy, civility, interactivity, authenticity, and independence. In addition, this survey describes the open issues in the IoT-inspired Metaverse, which need to be addressed to eventually achieve the convergence of physical and cyber worlds.